Infamous financier reported dead

May 06, 2008

HAVANA (AP) -- Robert Vesco, the American fugitive who cooked up moneymaking schemes that allegedly involved everyone from Colombian drug lords to the families of U.S. presidents, died in Cuba and was buried almost six months ago, according to an official document. A burial record at Havana's Colon Cemetery shows that a man with the same name and birth date -- Dec. 4, 1935 -- died on Nov. 23 from lung cancer and was buried the next day in a private plot. He was 71, less than two weeks shy of his 72nd birthday. In his lifetime, Vesco was accused of looting millions from a Swiss mutual fund, attempting to find U.S. planes for Libya and inventing a drug that he claimed could cure AIDS.